linations, which, seconded with a moderate portion of effrontery,
might have plunged me into the most unwarrantable excesses.

I have made the first, most difficult step, in the obscure and painful
maze of my Confessions. We never feel so great a degree of repugnance in
divulging what is really criminal, as what is merely ridiculous. I am
now assured of my resolution, for after what I have dared disclose,
nothing can have power to deter me. The difficulty attending these
acknowledgments will be readily conceived, when I declare, that during
the whole of my life, though frequently laboring under the most violent
agitation, being hurried away with the impetuosity of a passion which
(when in company with those I loved) deprived me of the faculty of sight
and hearing, I could never, in the course of the most unbounded
familiarity, acquire sufficient resolution to declare my folly, and
implore the only favor that remained to bestow.

In thus investigating the first traces of my sensible existence, I find
elements, which, though seemingly incompatible, have united to produce a
simple and uniform effect; while others, apparently the same, have, by
the concurrence of certain circumstances, formed such different
combinations, that it would never be imagined they had any affinity; who
would believe, for example, that one of the most vigorous springs of my
soul was tempered in the identical source from whence luxury and ease
mingled with my constitution and circulated in my veins? Before I quit
this subject, I will add a striking instance of the different effects
they produced.

One day, while I was studying in a chamber contiguous to the kitchen, the
maid set some of Miss Lambercier's combs to dry by the fire, and on
coming to fetch them some time after, was surprised to find the teeth of
one of them broken off. Who could be suspected of this mischief? No one
but myself had entered the room: I was questioned, but denied having any
knowledge of it. Mr. and Miss Lambercier consult, exhort, threaten, but
all to no purpose; I obstinately persist in the denial; and, though this
was the first time I had been detected in a confirmed falsehood,
appearances were so strong that they overthrew all my protestations.
This affair was thought serious; the mischief, the lie, the obstinacy,
were considered equally deserving of punishment, which was not now to be
administered by Miss Lambercier. My uncle Bernard was written to; he
arrive